Category Archives: Sports

Sports

Raiders tame Wildcats in junior football

The Davidson Raiders junior football team took it to the Watrous Wildcats at The Ranch last week in a decisive 35-14 victory.

On the first play of the game, the Raiders Addison Ouellette returned the opening kickoff 80 yards for a touchdown and the team didn’t look back. The Raiders, playing their first game of existence on Sept. 26, performed like seasoned veterans in defeating a Watrous team that featured some players who already had two years under their belt in football.

“I knew the guys were going to be a little hesitant, so I wasn’t sure of what to expect,” said co-coach Trevor Ouellette. “For the most part the defence played well and the offence played well. The guys did what they were supposed to do, so it was a pretty good game.”

The Raiders, which enlist grades 7-9 Davidson School players, was up against the odds as they were facing a seasoned team that had players who have been involved in football since Grade 5. They stood up and proved Davidson has a future football age in the works by pounding the Wildcats on defence by never backing down from a hard tackle and hitting the offensive marks through an air and ground offence.

“It was fun,” said Raiders co-coach Jason Low. “It was a really good introduction of junior football to Davidson. The boys were so excited and so revved up. They played really well and it was nice to get some points and give the fans something to cheer about.

“It’s a real promising step for the future of our football program here in Davidson.”

Low said the junior football program at Davidson School is different from the seniors in that it is more focused towards developing the players and keeping them safe instead of just letting them run plays on their own out on the field. He said there are coaches on the field with the players at all times, just to help them “understand the game,” and to correct any mistakes that might occur after a play.

“It just makes it more a teaching and learning experience for them,” he said.

The junior Raiders will play an away game in Watrous this week, but no set schedule is done up for the season. They will play at a jamboree tournament in Hague on Oct. 13 that should get them into three games on that date and their coaches hope another few games on the side, before or after then, can be set up.

Sports

Davidson brings back football

The Davidson Raiders senior boys football team opened their new home field, called The Ranch, to a big crowd all decked out in Raiders blue and white, and of course Roughriders green. They packed the stands and cheered their hearts out in anticipation of football coming back to the Midway Town.

Unfortunately, it was their opponent’s fans, all dressed in Hanley Sabres red, who had the most reason to cheer as the Sabres trounced the Raiders beating the home club easily 58-0 in the Raiders first home game in over 30 years Sept. 14.

“We knew coming in that Hanley was a strong team with great players,” said Raiders head coach Jason Low. “We knew it was going to be a strong test and again a slow start for us made it difficult. We were struggling to find the intensity and need to work on channeling our aggression.”

Raiders linebacker Jon Taylor caught the initial kickoff to start the game and proceeded to get stuffed by a swarming Hanley defence. The Raiders tried on that first play to move the ball down the field, but the Sabres were too strong and ended up taking over on offence after three Raiders downs that didn’t really go anywhere.

It was all Hanley from that point on.

Sabres quarterback Josh Anderson quickly ran the ball into the Raiders end zone for his first of many scoring plays on the night. Anderson, in his third year as Hanley’s starting QB, led the Sabres offence in every possible way running in for three touchdowns, passing for another three and even kicking the converts. The Raiders simply could find no way to stop him.

“Our defence continues to experiment with competitive formations and we need to find one that will work with the guys,” said Low.

The crowd, which was loud in their support of the Raiders at the beginning of the game, seemed to be at about the same volume as the small Hanley contingent by the end of the first quarter, with the Sabres leading 20-0. By the end of the second quarter and the score way out of hand at 48-0, the crowd on the Davidson side was mostly silent.

The second half opened just where the first half left off, with Anderson running past the Raiders defence on his way to bringing the score up to 54-0. The Sabres basically shut down their offence after that, choosing to practise their defensive formations instead.

To read more please see the Sept. 24 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson, Sports

Raiders volleyball team get the blues

The Davidson Raiders senior girls volleyball team kept the score close against a talented Outlook Blues team at Davidson School last Wednesday, but couldn’t “catch any breaks” in the two games played losing 3 sets to 2 in the first match and 5-0 in the second.

Tony Baldwin, volunteer coach of the Raiders, said the team “earned every point” against the Blues and generally played good, but the girls still have some work to do in gelling as a team and getting more serves on target as the season progresses.

“It’s just the first week of the season, so there is a lot of rust there, but I thought the young girls played well and they’re in the process of learning how to play together,” said Baldwin. “Some of those girls have played for a couple years in senior ball and some of them have never played a senior game until (this one), so that is what the start of the season is about in getting them all hooked up.”

The coach said the older girls on the team are doing a great job in coaching the younger ones on good position play and it is “really exciting” for him to see how well the Grade 10 students understand the defensive structure already.

He said the main struggle against the Blues in the second game was the Raiders’ serves and in senior volleyball “you can’t miss serves,” so that is something they’ll be working on in practice. Other problems that occurred against the Blues could partially be due to the fact Outlook is a bigger school than Davidson and organizes their team into an A squad and B squad.

To read more lease see the Sept. 17 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson, Sports

Raiders suffer loss against LCBI Bisons

The Davidson Raiders Senior boys football team lost their only exhibition game of the season 46-13 to the LCBI Bisons last Thursday. This came as they try to shake the cobwebs out after a long summer before taking home field this week for their regular season home opener.

Jason Low, head coach of the Raiders, said it took the 6-man football team a while to get going and remember how to play football Sept. 6 at Outlook field, but that all in all it was a “good first game” for the club.

“We pretty much were sleeping for the first half, that was the hardest part for us,” said Low. “The score was 32-0 at half and then we regrouped and made some adjustments and changes and started playing a little bit better.”

The Raiders were able to push the ball up the field against the Bisons during the second half and kept up the pressure on LCBI almost matching them on the scoreboard 14-13 in a tight second half.

“It was good,” said Low. “Towards the end of the game we made sure everybody got some playing time. We subbed in all our rookies and got everybody in.”

Low said the team would be working on “fine-tuning their defensive system before squaring off Sept. 14 against the Hanley Sabers at Davidson field. He said the offence has to get a little more comfortable with each other as well.

“I’m just trying to help them gel a little more and get some more points on the board.”

featured, Sports

McNabb readies for an uncertain year with no NHL hockey

Brayden McNabb is looking to start the year as a regular on the Buffalo Sabres blueline and is working hard this summer to build up some muscle and improve his foot speed, despite the threat of a NHL owner’s lockout cancelling the upcoming season.

“I’m going to have to earn a spot out of camp, so I’m doing my best to train right now over the summertime and get myself ready for that,” said McNabb, the Davidson native who split the 2011-12 year between the big club and their affiliate in Rochester. “The camp will be (open Sept. 15) and that’s what I’m training for right now. When the time comes, I’m hoping to be ready to go and get a chance to crack the top six.”

The 21-year-old defenceman played 25 games for Buffalo in his first year in the pros last season scoring a goal and assisting on seven others. He suited up for another 45 with the Rochester Americans racking up 30 points including five goals for the AHL club. He was picked up by the Sabres in the third round of the 2009 draft while playing with the Kooteney Ice of the WHL.

McNabb said he is on the ice pretty steady now as he builds on the repetitions to get more game ready, progressing from only lacing up the skates one or two times a week in early July. He trains with Kelly Riou of Next Level Training in Saskatchewan during the off-season, but also spent three weeks this summer in Buffalo working with Doug McKenney, the team’s strength and conditioning coach, at the Sabres’ home rink, the First Niagara Center.

“It’s a bunch of weights and a lot of feet stuff,” he said about his exercise routine. “That is the big thing I need. Earlier in the year I do more weights and more in the gym. Now that it’s August I’m skating almost five days a week, so it’s a combination of in the gym and skating right now. Usually at the start of summer I try to get more weight put on and get some more muscle and get some muscle back. Later in August and into September I try and get my cardio more into shape.”

To read more please see the Sept. 3 print edition of The Davidson Leader.

Davidson, Sports

Davidson School to have junior football

Young football players hoping to suit up in Raiders’ blue and white no longer have to wait for Grade 10 to get involved in the action, as Davidson School is starting up a junior football team this September.

Trevor Ouellette, town recreation director and head coach of the junior team, said the new club would welcome boys and girls from grades 7 to 9 to tryout for the Raiders’ junior football team. He said tryouts would start the second week of school with a focus on introducing the young players to tackle football.

“We’re planning for 13 to 15 kids coming out,” Ouellette said. “If we get 15, we’re laughing. It’s male and female. If the girls feel comfortable getting hit, they are more than welcome to come out.”

Kids who make the team will be charged a fee to help pay for the team’s expenses, with the rest of the money needed to start up the club coming from a community grant from Sask. Lotteries. The school decided to put together a junior team in order to make better use of the new field behind the school and to create a feeder system into the senior team.

Ouellette said it is unfair to suit up a senior team with little to no experience in organized football and put them into action against other clubs that have kids that have been playing the game for the past four years. He added another benefit of junior football is to get the kids more active and challenged both mentally and physically.

“You learn a lot about yourself, about what you can do and what you can’t do,” he said. “You are put into a lot of intense one-on-one battles, especially in six-man football.  I played 12-man football for seven years in the city and the first three or four years you never get to touch the ball, you just run up and down the field. With six-man, you can’t hide. You’re involved. It’s a lot of fun.”

To read more please see the Sept. 3 print edition of The Davidson Leader.